Only Fantasy Traders in the Building (The Mitchell Case)

[cow]

To me Westbrook makes no sense, because I don't think you land a difference-maker in 2023 going that route.

Also I am really leery of plans that center on yet another "big chase" shortcut. Shortcuts often become long-cuts and disasters instead. Cuban wasted all the post-title years for Dirk in one shortcut plan after another that led to nowhere except the treadmill of mediocrity.

In this case, it likely to waste several years of Luka's career. You're blowing off 2022-23, then you only have a stripped down roster in 2023-24, and perhaps the following year as well, which is going to be a big handicap against teams spending 30-60M more in payroll. I'd rather be working with a 160-170M payroll, and getting another talent here and there while building on what we have already put together, rather than go through repeated short-window cycles of build up - tear down that hope to stumble into something good.

That's a defeatist attitude and you can also say given the MBT's performance that there is no way we are going to draft or trade for a second star.   You have to give MBT 2.0 a chance in the free agency market.  It's a risk but we aren't getting a difference maker in the trade market either with the asset pool.  And it also doesn't have to be a "big chase" but maybe you can sign a few PatBev level players.  We also have no indication that Cuban is willing to go to a 160-170M payroll and free up future cap space doesn't prevent you from getting there either, right?  It all just depends on the order of signings and resignings.  I also don't think getting rid of long term bad salary at the cost of a marginal downgrade in talent for a year is a shortcut.  

I think this team had limited potential with JB on the roster but with him gone and us returning nothing, we are already on a treadmill.  Too good for lottery picks, not good enough to compete for titles.

All that said, I stick by my stance that the odds of this happening are less than 1%.  And if the MBT are so convinced that is the wrong type of move, it's more evidence for it being the right move.